Posted on 04/12/2012 9:20:24 PM PDT by POWERSBOOTHEFAN
I was going on four in 1980 and I don't remember hearing about this on the news. I was curious if anyone here remembers it or was actually stuck in traffic after the collapse.
I watched a video about it on YouTube.
Recall the Wild weather that day as a child in Sarasota.
Interstate 75 did not go the land route south of Tampa then so the bridge was the only major link to the north so we took the bridge all the time .
My first wife was terrified of the bridge before it collapsed. She spoke of seeing it for the first time and commenting “Oh look at the pretty suspension...oh that’s the bridge.”
“the zillion stoplights between st. Pete and Ft. Myers.”
I recall it used to take 7 hours to go from Tampa to Naples via that route.
Up here in Michigan the Mackinaw Bridge Authority will drive you and your car over the Bridge to or from the Upper Pennisula if you are too scared to drive over the bridge yourself. The bridge is 5 miles long from causeway to causeway. I believe two cars have gone off the bridge in its history.
Sometimes the winds are too high at the Straits, and they close the bridge to traffic.
It is “cool” drive to those who have experienced it.
On a bike? Wow.
I can’t imagine how scary it was for those people.
I’ve never been across it. Maybe I should make a trip down there just for the hell of it. I wanna know what it’s like.
I think the man who drove that car went back for his golf clubs! Others who got out of their cars in time actually went to close their doors,LOL.
That’s funny. I guess a lot of people are afraid of that bridge.
I’m surprised the current one doesn’t have higher guardrails.
People have actually survived the fall after attempting suicide!
I went back to visit my parents with my little boys about 20 years ago and decided to take them to my favorite beach on Pass-a-Grille. Turned out it was now a gay hangout! I had to take them to Madeira after that. My parents have since died and I haven’t been back in many years - too depressing. I have pictures of strings of fish my dad and his buddy caught in the 50s or 60s, when the fishing was awesome.
How could a qualified merchant seaman not know “Red-Right-Return” and the implications of a red on the port bow of an inbound?
Bingo. I have two experiences, about four decades apart, that lead me to believe that this has happened to me too. Oddly, both of them involve tall buildings in Chicago.
Back around 1970, a former college buddy who worked at the John Hancock Center had access to the roof as part of his job. Along with other mutual friends, we went up on the roof, approximately 1000 feet above the street. Hanging onto the window washer railing with one arm, I leaned over the edge to take a photo straight down the front of the building to North Michigan Avenue.
A couple of years ago, I was back in the city on a visit and went up to the observation floor of the Sears (oops--Willis!) Tower, where I had been several times before. This time,however, they had The Ledge: A couple of glass boxes portruding out from the building. So you could walk (or crawl!) into the box and be, seemingly, in thin air twelve hundred feet above Wacker Drive.
Try as I might, I couldn't get myself to walk out onto The Ledge.
I grew up in Clearwater. Used to fish the Skyway and Gandy all the time.
I’ve only crossed that bridge once, back in the 50s when my dad was driving us all back to Michigan. It soured me on bridges for decades. I still haven’t driven across the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor. Forget the Mackinac Bridge. I’ve been on a bus over the Golden Gate and on a ship under it, but have yet to drive it. Oddly, I had no problems with the Oakland Bay Bridge. On the other coast, the Delaware Memorial Bridge used to terrify me but I’m over that now. I think I’ve driven across the Mississippi River 50 times, and about that many over the Bridge of the Americas over the Panama Canal, but I still won’t tackle the Bay Bridge. I drove across the Europeabrucke in the Alps, frozen with terror, and there is a cloverleaf nightmare over Genoa, the thought of which still turns my bowels to water.
I live in Massachusetts, but visited my sister in Bradenton a few months after the collapse. It was shocking.
Wasn’t there when it happened, but been on the bridge many times since on trips down there. So much so that I read all about the accident.
I’ve been in Florida since ‘93 and I have yet to go across it.
I have been across the Howard Frankland numerous times,though.
I agree. At least the Golden Gate is about 12 lanes wide! LOL
And we must be related somehow...I hate that damn bridge that goes straight up and over the crest and then straight down. And in my dreams the damn thing is only ONE lane!
Must be why I’m not a roller coaster fan. At least not the ones they make now.
That’s intense.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.